confiderable prejudice both to the beauty and fertility of the tree; and this is plainly said, and as often inculcated, as if one should write round about a fign, This is a dog, This is a dog, out of over-much caution left fome might happen to mistake it for a lion. Therefore, when this calumny could not hold (for the cafe is clear, and will take no colour), fome others fought out a fubtler hint to traduce me upon the fame score, and were angry that the person whom I made a true gentleman, and one both of confiderable quality and sufferings in the royal party, fhould not have a fair and noble character throughout, but should fubmit in his great extremities to wrong his niece for his own relief. This is a refined exception, fuch as I little forefaw, nor fhould, with the dulnefs of my usual charity, have found out against another man in twenty years. The truth is, I did not intend the character of a hero, one of exemplary virtue, and, as HOMER often terms such men, unblamable, but an ordinary jovial gentleman, commonly called a good-fellow, one not fo confcientious as to starve rather than do the least injury, and yet endowed with so much sense of honour, as to refufe, when that neceffity was removed, the gain of five thousand pounds, which he might have taken from his niece by the ri

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gour of a forfeiture: and let the franknefs of this latter generosity so expiate for the former frailty, as may make us not afhamed of his company; for, if his true metal is but equal to his allay, it will not indeed render him one of the finest fort of men, but it will make him current, for aught I know, in any party that ever yet was in the world. If you be to choose parts for a comedy out of any noble or elevated rank of perfons, the most proper for that work are the worst of that kind. Comedy is humble of her nature, and has always been bred low, fo that she knows not how to behave herself with the great and accomplished. She does not pretend to the brisk and bold qualities of wine, but to the stomachal acidity of vinegar, and therefore is best placed among that fort of people which the Romans call, The lees of ROMULUS. If I had defigned here the celebration of the virtues of our friends, I would have made the scene nobler where I intended to ere& their ftatues. They fhould have ftood in odes, and tragedies, and epic poems (neither have I totally omitted those great teftimonies of my esteem of them) Sed nunc non erat his locus, &c.

AND fo much for this little fpiny objection,. which a man cannot fee without a magnifying

glafs.

glafs. The next is enough to knock a man down, and accuses me of no less than prophaneness. Prophane, to deride the hypocrify of those men whose skulls are not yet bare upon the gates fince the public and juft punishment of it? But there is fome imitation of fcripture-phrafes: God forbid; there is no reprefentation of the true face of fcripture, but only of that vizard which these hypocrites (that is, by interpretation, actors with a vizard) draw upon it. Is it prophane to speak of HARRISON's return to life again, when fome of his friends really profeffed their belief of it, and he himself had been faid to promife it? A man may be fo imprudently fcrupulous as to find prophaneness in any thing, either faid or written, by applying it under fome fimilitude or other to fome expreffions in fcripture. This nicety is both vain and endless. But I call God to witness, that, rather than one tittle fhould remain among all my writings, which, according to my fevereft judgment, fhould be found guilty of the crime objected, I would myself burn and extinguish them all together. Nothing is fo deteftably lewd and wretchlefs as the derifion of things facred, and would be in me more unpardonable than any man elfe, who have endeavoured to root out the ordinary weeds of poetry, and to plant it almost wholly with divinity. I am

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I am so far from allowing any loose or irreverent expreffions, in matters of that religion which I believe, that I am very tender in this point, even for the groffeft errors of confcientious perfons; they are the properest obje&t (methinks) both of our pity and charity too; they are the innocent and white fe&taries, in comparifon of another kind, who ingraft pride upon ignorance, tyranny upon liberty, and upon all their herefies, treason and rebellion. These are principles fo deftructive to the peace and fociety of mankind, that they deferve to be pursued by our serious hatred; and the putting a mask of fanctity upon fuch devils, is fo ridiculous, that it ought to be expofed to contempt and laughter. They are indeed prophane, who counterfeit the foftnefs of the voice of holinefs, to difguife the roughness of the hands of impiety; and not they, who, with reverence to the thing which others diffemble, deride nothing but their diffimulation. If fome piece of an admirable artist should be ill copied, even to ridiculousness, by an ignorant hand; and another painter fhould undertake to draw that copy, and make it yet more ridiculous, to fhew apparently the difference of the two works, and deformity of the latter; will not every man see plainly, that the abuse is intended to the foolish imitation, and not to the excellent original? I might fay much more, to

confute

confute and confound this very falfe and malicious accufation; but this is enough, I hope, to clear the matter, and is, I am afraid, too much for a preface to a work of fo little confidera

tion.

As for all other objections, which have been, or may be made against the invention or elocution, or any thing else which comes under the critical jurisdiction; let it ftand or fall as it can anfwer for itself, for I do not lay the great stress of my reputation upon a structure of this nature, much less upon the flight reparations only of an old and unfashionable building. There is no writer but may fail fometimes in point of wit; and it is no less frequent for the auditors to fail in point of judgment. I perceive plainly, by daily experience, that Fortune is miftrefs of the theatre, as TULLY fays it is of all popular affemblies. No man can tell fometimes from whence the invifible winds rife that move them. There are a multitude of people, who are truly and only fpectators at a play, without any use of their understanding; and these carry it sometimes by the strength of their numbers. There are others, who use their understandings too much; who think it a fign of weakness and stupidity, to let any thing pass by them, unattack